“I personally knocked on over 16,000 doors, more than once, across the whole district, because I think it’s important that every single resident have an elected official who takes the time to listen and deeply understand what their concerns are,” he said. “The number-one issue I heard about was homelessness. I heard about affordable housing. I’ve heard about jobs. I heard about all the different ways that we need to make our community better and the only way we’re going to do that is work with people of all different ideological backgrounds to make it happen.”

Slom, who has held the seat for the past 20 years, congratulated Chang on his victory.

“I just hope that he will try to keep some of that openness that we’re proud of for the last 20 years,” Slom said. “I’ve been very humbled, very privileged to be able to represent the people of East Honolulu and also the State of Hawaii. We’ve always taken the position that anyone is welcome in our office, which never had a closed door. We helped people, we didn’t ask them where they were from or what political party.”

Chang’s victory, combined with other Senate victories Tuesday, means Hawaii will have an all-Democratic Senate.

Slom says he will continue to work for the community by attending neighborhood board meetings and staying vocal on issues.